Published December 7, 2011 by Candy Evans

Life used to be so easy. Move into a new home or apartment, call the gas company, the water company, the electric company. If you changed cities, you might have to change your telephone number. But all that has changed. My kids don’t even have land lines in their homes, because they use their cell phones. So is moving to a new home easier when it comes to setting up utilities?

Are you kidding? It’s a nightmare. There is no longer one gas or electric company, so you have to sharpen your pencils and call your nerdiest friends for a spreadsheet analysis of where to find the lowest kilowatt hours. Getting hooked up in a new home is seriously as complicated as doing your income taxes. There are conditions, and choices, and it’s not just utilities — it’s cable, television, high speed internet service, wifi, home security systems! Satellite versus high speed whatever. We have ATT Uverse and I still do not know how to change the channel. We have Google TV (xmas gift, last year) and I can figure out the control board of a Citation easier than the Google remotes — yes, two. Plural.

So when I heard what Gabe Abshire was doing at Utility Concierge, I asked if he was selling corporate shares already because I’m buying. What is he doing? Getting you hooked up with all your utilities and services. Oh and smart Realtors will do themselves a HUGE favor by telling their clients about this. SO SMART. Best of all it’s free to the consumer. You move into a home, you call Utility Concierge, and within 24 hours a nice gentleman who speaks English calls you back. They are in Dallas, not Bangladesh, I have seen them with my own eyes. They handle all of your utility hook ups from the water to the high speed internet and security. Cost to you: nada. And they get you the very best pricing. How? Easy: they have huge market share so they can lean on the utilities for the best rates. They come back to you with the best package rates, you decide what you want, supply a credit card or check, and it’s done. Gabe tells me that with most homeowners, all it takes is ONE call!

Can you imagine? I think it took me two weeks to get our home hooked up. Now I cannot imagine why a good Realtor wouldn’t want to tell their clients about this service, since it’s (a) free, (b) convenient (c) makes them out to be the Lone Ranger. (Hint: smart ones are doing this. If your agent isn’t telling you about ways to save time and money, maybe you need a new one!) Check it out: Utility Concierge , founded and based in Dallas, Texas. Gabe makes life simple!